"Southie," as many Bostonians refer to the neighborhood, is the area where prosecutors say Bulger committed several crimes, including 19 murders and participation as a secret FBI informant.

As many residents of the community learn of the disturbing past of a man they either worshiped or feared, the streets around them are dramatically changing.

On June 12, The New York Times referred to South Boston as "SoBo," sparking heated reactions across all platforms of social media.

Many people, presumably from Boston, tweeted variations of, "Raise your hand if you call South Boston 'SoBo.' Then buy yourself a one-way ticket to New York."

New Yorkers, who call the area South of Houston Street, "SoHo," are accustomed to referring to their Manhattan neighborhoods in acronyms; "TriBeCa" is the Triangle Below Canal Street, so it was no wonder they would eventually attempt to spread their tradition to Boston.

Many natives claim this new term is based on the economic and cultural changes taking place.

"When I grew up here, we didn’t have anything. Just tea and toast," said Charlie Federico, owner of Federico's Bike Shop on Emerson Street in South Boston. "Now everybody here, they got money… They just don’t want to spend it."

Beginning in the 1980s, there was an invasion of "yuppies," upper-middle class and middle class working adults in their 20s and 30s, who changed the culture of South Boston. The increasing population of young professionals altered the land that was home to the first public housing project.

Federico opened his bike shop in 1938, a time period when, he says, people had stronger relationships with each other.

"Then, in came these nutcakes from Harvard and they screwed up the whole (neighborhood)," he said. "Sobo? Well you know, that's how the educated morons express their opinions. But if you wanna see what Southie is all about, go see the (M Street Park) monument or go down to Castle Island and then look at all the history."

Tom Cirignano, author of "The Constant Outsider: Memoirs of a South Boston Mechanic," and "67 Cents: Creation of a Killer," had not heard of Sobo before reading The New York Times' article.

"I don't think it would sit well with multi-generational Southie residents," said Cirigano. "But if yuppies want to refer to it that way, it's a free country. I just wouldn’t use it."

Cirignano, who was born in Dorchester and grew up working at his father's gas station, Emerson Auto Service Corp., on East Third Street in South Boston, said that some of his earliest memories of Southie were violent.

"Crime back then was just like the Wild West," he said. "Everybody that I knew had guns and it was common for people to come into the gas station and show me their new guns."

Cirignano said he also saw a lot of drug dealing.

"You would walk into the men's room in a restaurant, and just about every time, somebody would be in there, chopping up coke or crystal meth and say, 'Hey, you want a hit?' Everybody was very open about their drug use," he said. "It was too crazy, there was too much violence and too much drugs. The quality of life went down and the value of life went down."

Cirignano said working at the gas station let him hear what was going on in the neighborhood.

"When you have a gas station, everyone needs repairs on their cars," he said. "I did a lot of work for the mobsters. I knew them all except for the inner circle – Whitey's gang – so I would hear if anything went on in Southie."

After discovering two of his friends had been shot and killed, Cirignano decided he had seen enough.

"I said, 'I'm gettin' out of here,' because you can't be that close to all that violence without it dimensionally affecting you," he said.

Cirignano, who had been living on G Street for a few years as an adult, bought a house in Weymouth.

Cirignano returns to Southie often and said the neighborhood has improved dramatically.

"I don’t know how the people that have been living there for years can still afford it," he said. "That's the only bad thing, because I'm sure the taxes have gone up a lot. Now, they're out jogging, and you know, they're all yuppies, walking these fancy little dogs around… It's nothing like you would see in the '70s. It's just amazing. I could have bought three-decker houses for $40,000 and now it costs $375,000 for one."

Images: South Boston over the years

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As mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger' stands trial on murder and racketeering charges this summer, his former South Boston neighbors say his former territory has been transformed.